When my friend Daniele asked me if I would make a garland for her daughter Sydney's 1st birthday party, I was very excited when she said I could have complete creative freedom, as long as I stuck with the color theme of pink and gold - other than that I could do whatever I wanted! It's been awhile since I've sat down with a pair of scissors and paper and just made something for fun, so this banner was a good opportunity to get back into playing with my favorite medium. Inspired by the summer weather and with a tendency to always end up cutting out natural, leafy shapes, this banner ended up taking on a very tropical vibe.

I'm challenging myself this year to use up paper and supplies I already have for my creative projects, instead of buying more supplies every time I start a new project, so I dug through my drawers full of paper and scraps from past projects and found all these shades of pink and a pad of gold glitter paper that I didn't even know I had - the perfect supplies for Sydney's banner, without having to buy anything new!

I started with a base layer of light pink tissue tassels and built up from there. I knew I wanted it to be really full, with lots of texture, so I built it slowly, layer by layer, deciding to add more (or not) as I went. For the second layer I free-hand sketched some tropical leaves on the back side of the glitter paper, which I cut out, poked small holes in, and attached with twine so they were hanging (varying widths were important for the texture!).

After adding the tropical gold leaves, I added two different textures of pink paper leaves - the light pink longer with softer shaped leaves, and the darker pink I cut into sharper palm frond-inspired leaves, adding a nice contrast.

Since I was attaching each piece to the main strand with twine, I wanted something to help hide all the knots and attachments, so I created pineapples out of gold glitter paper, and white tropical flowers to secure along the main strand. These helped balance out the fullness of the garland while helping clean up and hide all the knots - plus they added the perfect TROPICAL finishing touch. After I added the flowers, it finally felt complete!

This was such a fun project to work on and I was happy with how it turned out - sometimes creative freedom produces the best results! Here are a few shots from the garland in action at Sydney's 1st birthday, isn't she the cutest? Happy Birthday Sydney!

With our new Easter cards filling the shop, and Easter egg hunts just around the corner - we’re bringing you a sneak peak of where our owner and designer Becca, found her inspiration for these beautiful illustrations.

Over the holidays I spent five days exploring Krakow and Warsaw, Poland. With a Polish heritage, and a childhood steeped in age-old traditions and ethnic holiday food, it was incredibly special to finally be able to experience some of these things in Poland. We spent a lot of time exploring the Christmas markets that were set up in each of the city’s main squares. Tasting local pastries, sausages, pierogis, and admiring all the colorful, floral, graphic folk art that was painted on pottery, Christmas decorations, stitched into linens, and my favorite - painted on the colorful Easter eggs that were everywhere, despite the Christmas season. I bought a handful of wooden, hand-painted eggs to bring home with me as souvenirs.

Photo of Warsaw, Poland by Becca Kudela

These eggs sparked an interest in the story behind the hand-painted treasures. My Aunt Marcia dug up some old Polish magazines, which were a wealth of information about the history of the Easter Egg.

“Eggs are a symbol of spring and rebirth all around the world, and they have also become the most enduring symbol of Easter and the Resurrection. In Poland, Easter egg-making has developed into a true art form and there are as many methods of making them as there are traditions and rituals associated with them. Easter eggs are called pisanki in Polish, which comes from the word pisac, which means to write. Designs are drawn or words are written on a hardboiled egg with a wax stylus, then placed in a dye. When the wax is scraped off, a white pattern is revealed on the colored egg.

Although pisanka has come to mean Easter Egg in Polish, it represents only one of the methods used to decorate eggs in Poland. Here are some of the most popular types of Polish Easter Eggs:

Sometimes, hollow eggs are used instead of hardboiled. The eggs can then be displayed all year long, ensuring good health and prosperity. The solid-color eggs were used for consumption; the decorated and hollow eggs would be saved from year to year. Once blessed in church on Holy Saturday, eggs were never thrown out, nor were the eggshells. Instead they would be buried in the garden or field as crops were sown, bringing good fortune and ensuring a good harvest. The water used in cooking Easter eggs was also saved and used to water fruit trees and to wash beehives. This was believed to result in sweet-tasting fruit and delicious golden honey.

Before Swiecone, the traditional Polish Easter Brunch, a blessed Easter egg is shared by the family, as Easter wishes are exchanged.”

Hand painted eggs from Krakow, Poland. Photo by Rebecca Kudela

And it wasn’t the hand-painted wooden eggs alone. I found graphic inspiration everywhere we went. We ate dinner one night at a small Pierogi restaurant where hand-painted flowers decorated the interior, colorfully climbing the walls and blooming on the ceiling. The buildings in the old centers of Krakow and Warsaw were painted in a rainbow of pastels, doors were ornate, and bright hand-painted patterns covered the weathered old walls of buildings. It was these colors, textures, and especially the hand-painted florals I saw everywhere that inspired our Easter card collection.

Warsaw, Poland by Becca Kudela

We hope you’re enjoying our new Easter Collection! Wishing you and yours a blessed Easter!

I'm celebrating my third year being married to my wonderful husband Brent today, so I thought it was the perfect day to share the invites I designed for our fiesta themed wedding in Old Town San Diego, on January 11, 2014. Even though these invites are three years old, they are still one of my favorite suites I've ever designed. It wasn't easy having myself as a client, but was also fun to have complete design freedom.

I had always dreamed of having letterpress wedding invites, but when it came down to timing it was going to take too long to get my dream invites professionally printed. I ended up deciding to print and cut everything myself. It was a labor of love but I was able to get them done in a few days instead of waiting several weeks. Looking back now, after having done several weddings by hand, I would never do this again, but I learned a ton during the process.

I hand lettered type and created illustrations for the main invite and rsvp card. Rather than having a traditional details card, I printed four miniature vintage postcards from my collection, with different details about the wedding on the back of each card, and stuck them all in a mini white envelope. I hired my talented friend and favorite illustrator Brett of Hecho Por Sego to illustrate the custom HOLA font, which he screen printed onto little canvas bags. The rsvp and details cards fit inside these little bags, which I then secured to the main invite with white and gold twine. I really wanted our guests to have fun opening these invites, discovering all the little special pieces involved.

I found gorgeous cream envelopes with the most beautiful decorative flaps when I was in New York for a few days during the design process. I purchased 100 of each, the main envelope and smaller rsvp envelopes, and hand carried them back to California with me on the plane. I found the most perfect vintage cactus stamps on Etsy that I purchased from Verde Studio, they added the perfect pop of color to the all-shades-of-white suite.

They may not have been letter-pressed, but they sure turned out special. Our invites set the perfect tone for our white fiesta wedding, and we couldn't have been happier with them in the end. Thanks to my talented friends Kristina and Jo of Kristina Lee Photography for these beautiful photos AND for being the best wedding day photographers ever!

We recently shared photos of Stefani and Greg's invitations in a previous post, but when we received the images from their wedding photographer, Braedon Flynn of Braedon Photography, the images were too beautiful not to share again! We're obsessed with the gorgeous styling! The combination of lace and fresh flowers really captures the luxe, romantic feeling of the blush-toned wedding.

Custom invitations are always extra special when we get to design them for friends and family, so we were very excited when Jen's (Orange Paper Shoppe Co-Founder) sister Stefani got engaged and wanted us to design her wedding invites. Her wedding vision was elegant and dreamy : shades of pale pinks paired with mercury glass silvers and roses, such a beautiful theme to bring to life in the form of paper.

We paired simple type with hand illustrated rose and floral elements, and all the pieces of the suite were silver foiled (amazing!). The suite was wrapped with silver twine and sealed with a light pink rose wax seal. Luxe blush colored envelopes were lined with silver paper and addressed with gorgeous calligraphy. The whole package was so elegant and dreamy. Congratulations Mr. & Mrs. Pateryn, thanks for letting us bring your wedding vision to life!

When my college roommate Jess asked me to design her wedding invites for her dreamy destination wedding in Kauai, Hawaii, I couldn't have been more excited. Jess shared a room with me in the dorms at SDSU, back in my art school days, and watched me work through many delirious and sleepless nights of drawing, painting, and working on all kinds of projects, so it was extra special to work with her, more than ten years later (already? yikes!) to create custom art and illustrations for her very own wedding.

Jess and Dan were the perfect clients to work with because they really encouraged me to get creative, and wanted to include hand drawn illustrations, which is always my favorite part of the process. They wanted to incorporate pineapples and bright tropical colors inspired by the flowers of Hawaii, like pops of bright pink and yellow, paired with the elegant combo of navy and white. I hand painted Hawaii-inspired elements like pineapples, palm trees, seashells and tropical cocktails to create a pattern for the back of the invite and rsvp card. Jess' little dog Mae is very special to her and an important part of Jess and Dan's family, so I worked in little Mae silhouettes into the pattern as well. I also created hand-drawn icons for each event included on the wedding weekend itinerary.

Jess had the navy blue envelopes addressed in gold ink by calligrapher Michelle Kimberly Chan of MKC Calligraphy, and used colorful, tropical vintage stamps from Pack & Post Shop. The result was just beautiful and it was such a fun treat to receive one in the mail! It was so fun to be able to bring Jess and Dan's vision for their wedding invites to life. Congratulations Mr. & Mrs. Hasselman!

We recently designed these custom My Little Pony invitations for Ella's colorful 6th birthday party. Ella is lucky to have such a talented party planner as a mom, her party looked like a dream come true! You can see more photos from this colorful party, by Suzanne Carey Photography HERE.

Rainbow colored type on the front, a rainbow watercolor stain on the back, completed with 'Rainbow Dash' (Ella's favorite pony) silhouette tags that were tied on with pink twine and sent in pink envelopes. The combo of crisp white paired with the rainbow colors was so pretty, especially when brought to life at the party!

Today we're super excited to share one of our recent custom wedding invitation suites we designed for Alexis and Jon's wedding in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico last December. When Alexis told me her wedding colors were gold and hot pink and she wanted to incorporate lots of cacti and hand drawn elements, I knew this was a dream project!

I hand lettered the type and illustrated the caucus on the main invitation, which we gold foiled (what's more amazing than a gold cactus?!), and illustrated Mexico-inspired images for the wedding weekend itinerary. Vintage postcards of Mexico (from my personal collection) were printed on the back of the RSVP and Details card, which slid inside the mini canvas Hola bags, illustrated and screen printed (in HOT PINK) by our good friend Brett of Hecho Por Sego.

These were definitely the most festive invitations I've ever designed, it was so fun bringing Alexis' vision to life! There aren't many color combos as amazing as GOLD and HOT PINK! A huge congratulations to Alexis and Jon!

Inspired by today being St. Patrick's Day I thought it would be fun to share these photos from one of our first shoots, shot by our favorite Kristina Lee Photography, of some of our favorite cards in shades of green. I've always been a fan of anything organized by color. That beautiful succulent was from my wedding bouquet, and those vintage cactus stamps make everything look more beautiful! All cards are available in our shop and also our ETSY shop (colors may vary). Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone!

Last spring we designed custom invitations and paper goods for my best friend Ashley's bridal shower, which was featured on The Luxe Pearl blog yesterday! Our good friends at Kristina Lee Photography did an amazing job capturing all the details of this special day and it's always extra exciting when our work gets featured!

It was a unique project because I was also her maid of honor, so for me these were really special invites to be a part of. She wanted a pink and gold theme for her bridal shower, to bring in some of the feminine touches (like every shade of pink!) that wouldn't be used in her black and white forest themed wedding. The invites themselves were gold foiled and the kraft envelopes were lined with pink watercolor liners and stamped with vintage stamps, all in shades of pink. I made custom 'XO' tags to tie around the invites that tied into the bride's love for Beyoncé (The invite copy started out with 'We love her like XO...', inspired by the Beyoncé song).

In addition to the invitations, we designed lots of paper goods for the shower, including paper feather tags used for place settings, custom tags tied onto the rose soap favors, custom tags for the champagne bar, and our 'Champagne Party' art print framed was the perfect accessory for the champagne bar.

One of our favorite shower invitations we've designed were these watercolored whale invites for a baby shower in Honolulu, Hawaii. I hand lettered all of the invite copy on the front of the card and illustrated the little smiling whale, which we also turned into gift tags for the event. The water-inspired watercolor stains on the back of the invite were a good compliment to the organic type on the front and were perfect for this shower by the sea.

This project happened a few years back but it's a fun one to share because it was the first time we were featured on a very well know wedding blog, 100 Layer Cake! We teamed up with the ladies of Beijos Events to create invitations, menus and resolution cards for their modern, glamorous Glitz New Years Eve party. Looking at all these photos will definitely inspire you to put on something sparkly and throw a fabulous bash! Check out the original blog post on 100 Layer Cake HERE.

For one of our first blog posts, I thought it would be fun to share the very first wedding invitations I ever designed. At the time Orange Paper Shoppe wasn't even a thought in our minds, and now looking back on it, this is probably one of the projects that started it all.

I was working as a graphic designer at Roxy at the time, when one of my co-workers and best friends, Jade, got engaged and asked me to design her invitations. Excited to take on my very first official wedding invitation project, I jumped at the chance.

Jade wanted invites that were elegant, clean, modern and romantic for her Black & White Italian themed wedding. My friend Evan introduced me to the gorgeous font Affair, which I thought was perfect, and I illustrated the decorative elements and created a pattern for the envelope liners.

I printed and hand cut every one of the pieces myself : the main invitations, rsvp cards, menu cards, reception cards, and envelope liners, which is CRAZY thinking about it now. It was SO much work, but it was my first project and I didn't know much about working with printers at the time. Jade organized an assembly day where her bridesmaids and family came over and we all worked to put them together.

It was a lot of work, but a great first project that I learned a lot from. I appreciate Jade taking a leap of faith and asking me to design her invites with no previous experience. It truly was a labor of love and in the end she was happy, which is the most important part! Congrats to Jade and Josh who are still married, almost 6 years later! Thanks for the inspiration and the push to get me started down this invitation designing path!

Welcome to Orange Paper Shoppe's new website and our first official blog post! We will be using this blog to share many things with you : the story behind the building our paper shop dreams, the process behind our projects, our work spaces, the inspiration behind our work, custom projects and our experiences working with our favorite clients, DIY projects, and anything that inspires us! We hope you enjoy following along with our paper shop journey.